


Leave Me on the Tracks

by OrdinaryVegan



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, But also, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, SOS guys, Tumblr Prompt, andrew cares, because i clearly can't help myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 19:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10225514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrdinaryVegan/pseuds/OrdinaryVegan
Summary: If this had happened a few years ago, Andrew would have stood by and watched him leave. No argument, no attempted persuasion. Because that's what people do. They leave, or they treat you badly enough that you leave first. People are never worth the trouble.But not this time. The past decade with Neil has made Andrew come to terms with the fact thatthismeans something. Andrew is rather shocked to find that he believes he himself should be enough to make Neil stay. That he is worthy of it. That he wants Neil to stay, and he will be damned if he lets him go without a fight. Andrew is asking. And if that won't make Neil stay, nothing will.In which Neil tries to protect Andrew, and Andrew tells him to get over his hero complex.





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt by anon: Hi! Could you write andreil where Neil leaves Andrew to protect him? Like angst with a happy ending cause Andrew won't let Neil be stupid ! Thank you so much I love your writing!!

Neil hears Andrew in the kitchen of their Detroit apartment, apparently trying to navigate the cabinet of pots and pans. A loud crash comes just seconds before a hissed, “ _Shit_.” Neil smiles and laughs quietly to himself, returning his attention to the Exy notes he's working on. 

“Shut up,” is thrown harshly from Andrew’s general direction. 

Okay. Well, he _thought_ he had laughed quietly. 

Neil ignores him and watches King as he jumps up onto the couch beside him. He reaches out to scratch along his spine as Andrew comes around the corner to glare at them both, giant wooden spoon in hand. Neil wonders how much damage Andrew could do with that particular kitchen tool. He has been known to be quite creative. 

“Are you going to help, or are you going to continue being useless?”

Neil smirks at him. “Oh, do you need my help? I just assumed you had everything under control.”

Somehow, the glare intensifies. Having thought this feat to be impossible, Neil is pretty impressed.

Andrew turns on his heel to head back into the kitchen. “Get in here,” floats back over his shoulder, like he knows Neil will immediately follow. He's right. 

Neil releases a dramatic sigh as he tosses his notes onto the coffee table, navigating his way around cats and furniture to trail after Andrew. Once he enters the room, he sees that Andrew has hopped up onto the counter and is studiously ignoring him, turning the spoon over and over in his hands. 

Neil stares at him until he finally looks up. Andrew simply points to the pile of vegetables on the counter beside him, then over to the cutting board on the drying rack. 

“Really? I thought I was offering _assistance_ , not to take over.”

“Like I’d let you take over anything,” Andrew replies, something dangerously close to amusement in his voice. 

Neil rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he relents. “What's your job then?”

Andrew gestures toward the stove with his wooden spoon. It’s a pot of jasmine rice that's just been set to simmer. That’s it. 

“That won't need any attention for like twenty minutes!” Neil complains, but Andrew just shrugs and looks pointedly over at the cutting board again. 

Neil casts his eyes to the ceiling and lets out his second dramatic sigh of the evening, resolving himself to chopping for the foreseeable future. As he turns away to pick out a knife, Andrew grabs his arm and pulls him back to the space between his legs, still dangling over the edge of the counter. Neil smiles and begins to lean closer. Just as Andrew’s mouth opens to ask his yes or no, they are interrupted by three quick knocks on their front door. Andrew raises a questioning eyebrow, and Neil answers with a shrug. 

Neil reluctantly pulls away and starts toward the door, counting it as a victory that he kept his third dramatic sigh underwraps. He opens the door, and upon finding no one, sticks his head out into the hallway. His eyes catch on a large manila envelope leaning against wall. He stares. Picks it up. Turns around, and closes the door.

He stops just inside the living room, still staring at the object in his hands. Perfectly innocuous, not suspicious in the least. It shouldn’t fill him with fear and anticipation the way it does.

A second later, the envelope is gone. Neil looks up to see Andrew taking it into the kitchen, opening it along the way. He follows.

When he rounds the corner, Andrew has already spread the contents of the envelope across the table. He doesn’t look up as Neil comes closer. Neil steels himself for a moment before peering over his shoulder.

Photos. Dozens of photos. All of Andrew.

Leaving the gym, unlocking the apartment door, getting into the Maserati, the most mundane of tasks. 

They stare in silence for all of two minutes until Andrew begins to gather up the photos, putting them back into the envelope. He walks over to the trashcan and grabs the lighter on the counter.

“What are you doing?” Neil asks. “You can’t destroy those.”

“Watch me.”

“Andrew,” Neil says as he reaches forward, snatching the lighter from Andrew’s hands. Andrew levels him with an unimpressed scowl. 

“Why not? It’s obviously just a scare tactic.”

“Okay, well it’s working,” Neil insists. 

Andrew rolls his eyes. “You don’t even know who left them. It could have been anyone. Maybe I have a stalker. You never know. My fanbase is almost as big as yours.”

“Are you joking?” Neil asks incredulously. He can’t find anything even remotely funny in this situation. “There are only two options for who left them, and we both know it. It was either the Moriyamas or my father’s people. We have to take this to the FBI, we have to do something, we have to—”

“Neil,” Andrew cuts him off sharply. Neil is beginning to realize that it has become rather difficult to breathe. Andrew comes forward, pushes him into the closest chair and brings his head between his knees with a hand at the back of his neck. Neil’s right hand grabs at Andrew’s wrist, trying to find something, anything solid to keep him grounded. 

Andrew stays silent, motionless, letting Neil come down. Once he can breathe again, Neil drops his hand and looks up. Andrew’s expression is, of course, giving nothing away.

“I have to do something,” Neil says, barely above a whisper, voice weak and broken.

“Like what?” Andrew asks, tightening his hand on Neil’s neck. “Run?”

Neil looks away. He trains his eyes on the floor, the chair, the wall, anything but Andrew.

“I can take care of myself, Neil.”

“I know,” Neil mutters. “I know.” 

He gets up, taking the folder still clutched in Andrew’s free hand. Takes out the lighter he’d stashed in his pocket. Lights the envelope on fire and watches the flames devour it.

\---

Weeks pass, and Andrew can tell that Neil is still on edge. He is becoming more withdrawn, trying to hide it all the while. Like he thinks Andrew won’t notice that he’s pulling away. He is quicker to jump at the smallest noise, his eyes flick to the door with much more frequency, he catalogs the exits in every room he enters more ardently than before. 

Even his Exy game is suffering, his mind clearly occupied elsewhere. Andrew aims his rebounds at Neil’s ankles on more than one occasion, trying to get him to snap out of it. This earns him strange looks from their teammates, but Andrew has long since stopped caring about the opinions of others. 

Tonight, Neil stayed after practice for his monthly one-on-one meeting with their coach. Andrew’s was last week and lasted for a tense, silence-filled three minutes before the coach decided that was good enough.

Andrew makes dinner alone and puts the leftovers away for Neil. He migrates to the couch, sitting at the far end with his back to the arm, knees pulled up to his chest, front door in plain view. He is joined almost immediately by both Sir and King, fighting for dominance over who gets to sit on his lap and who is relegated to curling up on his feet. Sir wins.

They sit in comfortable silence, Andrew close to falling asleep, until he hears a key catch in the lock. He sits up, now wide awake, as Neil opens the door and slips inside. He toes off his shoes, hangs his keys on the rack, and starts moving toward the kitchen. He doesn’t offer Andrew so much as a glance. His movements are twitchy, stilted. A nervous hand jerks through his hair. He disappears into the other room, and Andrew removes the cats from obstructing his escape. He follows.

Neil is sitting at the table, hands clasped in front of him, no doubt attempting to affect a calm demeanor. It isn’t working. Andrew notices a piece of paper on the table. Innocuous, not the least bit suspicious. He takes the chair across from Neil and decides to wait him out. Neil finally looks up, the lack of emotion on his face making him nearly unrecognizable. He pushes the paper toward Andrew. A contract.

“I requested a transfer. Albuquerque is willing to take me. They said I can start immediately,” he says. His voice reminds Andrew somewhat of his own. 

Andrew says nothing, just continues to stare at him. He feels his anger begin to rise, but he tamps it down.

“It’ll be better this way,” Neil says, voice low.

“For who?” Andrew finally speaks. He will keep his voice level if it kills him.

Neil’s mask begins to crack. “I won’t continue to put you in danger. My presence in your life is a threat. It always has been, you can’t deny that. I can’t stay here.”

“Funny, I don’t remember asking you to protect me,” Andrew says, slowly getting more angry every time Neil opens his mouth.

“You didn’t have to,” Neil says, voice quiet again. He waits to see if Andrew will offer a reply. When he doesn’t, Neil continues. “We both know that those pictures were taken because of me. I don’t know what kind of message it was, but it obviously wasn’t good. It was a threat, Andrew. But whoever it was, they’ll back off if I’m gone. I checked, and the next flight to New Mexico leaves in the morning. We’ve done long-distance before, it wasn’t—”

“And you just decided this?” Andrew asks indignantly. He stands abruptly, pushing his chair back and placing his palms down flat on the table so he won’t do something stupid. He shakes his head minutely. “No.”

“No?” Neil asks. He looks puzzled, and this pisses Andrew off even more.

If this had happened a few years ago, Andrew would have stood by and watched him leave. No argument, no attempted persuasion. Because that's what people do. They leave, or they treat you badly enough that you leave first. People are never worth the trouble. 

But not this time. The past decade with Neil has made Andrew come to terms with the fact that _this_ means something. Andrew is shocked to find that he believes he himself should be enough to make Neil stay. That he is worthy of it. That he wants Neil to stay, and he will be damned if he lets him go without a fight. Andrew is asking. And if that won't make Neil stay, nothing will. 

“No,” Andrew repeats, staring daggers at Neil. “You’ve been a liar your entire life,” he begins, but Neil interrupts him.

“What does that have to do with anything? I’m not lying about being a threat. I’m not lying about wanting to protect you.”

Andrew waits for him to finish. “You have been a liar your entire life,” he begins again, slower this time. “You said it was always yes with you. You said you wanted to go back for me. Were you lying then, too?”

Neil stares at him, mouth slightly open as though he’d had a reply poised on his tongue but was rendered speechless. That’s new. 

Andrew continues. “Don’t say that this is about me. Not when I’m telling you that I don’t care, that I can take care of myself. I haven’t let anyone make decisions for me in a long time, and I don’t plan to start now. If you leave, if you _run_ , that’s it. I’m finished.”

“Andrew…” Neil says, his voice near pleading.

“Why am I not enough to make you stay?” Andrew asks, voicing the thought that had been on his mind since Neil walked through the door that night. He says it almost on accident, but Andrew doesn’t believe in regret. His hands are twitching on the table. He will not take it back. 

The silence drags on. Finally, Neil says, “You’ve always been enough to make me stay.” He sounds defeated. He reaches for the contract on the table. Tears it in half once, twice, three times. 

Andrew watches cautiously as Neil stands and comes to stand at his side. He reaches for Andrew’s right hand, gently prying it up from the table. He does the same with the left, holding onto them until they are no longer rigid and tense. He looks up as he brings Andrew’s hands to his lips to kiss his knuckles. He holds them there for a moment before lifting his head and meeting Andrew’s eyes again. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Neil says.

Andrew believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> thaaaaank you thank you for reading! As always, I am so grateful for the time you spend reading my words.
> 
> title from "Landfill" by Daughter. that song gives all the emo andreil feels.
> 
> come scream with me on tumblr @theordinaryvegan


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